Ikko Tanaka Overview

Ikko Tanaka (Tanaka Ikko) had more room for playfulness than the generation that preceded him. Working amongst the rubble of Japan's WWII defeat, his precursors advanced with heads of steam in urgent attempts to solidify their status among the world's elite.... [more]

Ikko Tanaka (Tanaka Ikko) had more room for playfulness than the generation that preceded him. Working amongst the rubble of Japan's WWII defeat, his precursors advanced with heads of steam in urgent attempts to solidify their status among the world's elite. Born in 1930, Tanaka came on the heels of his progenitors' innovations with a more relaxed outlook. While he understood their drive to meld traditional Japanese aesthetics with Modernist influences, he wasn't trapped under a nation's expectations for success. With nothing to prove, Tanaka was free to experiment with color and form. Black and white had been the dominant aesthetic: clean, cool, simple, refined. With his bold use of color, Tanaka expanded the possibilities of Japanese graphic design. His ultimate mission was beauty. A dedicated fan of American jazz, Tanaka employed color in a syncopated manner in order to express frivolity. That's not to say that his posters are chaotic explosions of color, as one might find in Pollock. Rather, Tanaka shares more of an affinity with Mondrian. Tanaka retains a Japanese elegance and simplicity through a strict adherence to basic geometric form. Like Mondrian, he is restrained in his juxtaposition of different hues -- and the result is just as energetic. But unlike Mondrian, Tanaka does not create abstract compositions. He is very conscious that graphic design is intended to communicate to a general public. Posters, according to Tanaka, are everyday vehicles of beauty and values that must be comprehensible. His poster design for the Asian Performing Arts Institute's 1981 tour illustrates Tanaka's vision. At first glance, the design seems to consist solely of a series of rectangles and squares. However, upon closer inspection, this geometric jumble morphs into the figure of a woman's head. The poster creates a sense of motion, as the woman appears poised to turn towards the audience. Japan's rising sun looms in the background; through its simple placement Tanaka establishes an effect of shadows and depth. Graphic design, by its very nature, demands that its practitioners be prescient. As a driving force of minimalism, Tanaka is a master of rendering the complex simple. He has received both the New York and Tokyo ADC Member's Grand Prize. [show less]